The king of France, uneasy at the close conjunction between Edward and the duke of Burgundy, received with the greatest demonstrations of regard the unfortunate Warwick,[**] with whom he had formerly maintained a secret correspondence, and whom he hoped still to make his instrument in overturning the government of England, and reëstablishing the house of Lancaster.
* Comines, liv. iii. chap. 4. Hall, fol. 205.
** Polyd. Virg. p. 519.
No animosity was ever greater than that which had long prevailed between that house and the earl of Warwick. His father had been executed by orders from Margaret: he himself had twice reduced Henry to captivity, had banished the queen, had put to death all their most zealous partisans either in the field or on the scaffold, and had occasioned innumerable ills to that unhappy family. For this reason, believing that such inveterate rancor could never admit of any cordial reconciliation, he had not mentioned Henry’s name when he took arms against Edward; and he rather endeavored to prevail by means of his own adherents, than revive a party which he sincerely hated. But his present distresses and the entreaties of Lewis made him hearken to terms of accommodation; and Margaret being sent for from Angers, where she then resided, an agreement was, from common interest, soon concluded between them. It was stipulated, that Warwick should espouse the cause of Henry, and endeavor to restore him to liberty, and to reëstablish him on the throne; that the administration of the government, during the minority of young Edward, Henry’s son, should be intrusted conjointly to the earl of Warwick and the duke of Clarence; that Prince Edward should marry the Lady Anne, second daughter of that nobleman; and that the crown, in case of the failure of male issue in that prince, should descend to the duke of Clarence, to the entire exclusion of King Edward and his posterity. Never was confederacy, on all sides, less natural, or more evidently the work of necessity: but Warwick hoped, that all former passions of the Lancastrians might be lost in present political views; and that, at worst, the independent power of his family, and the affections of the people, would suffice to give him security, and enable him to exact the full performance of all the conditions agreed on. The marriage of Prince Edward with the Lady Anne was immediately celebrated in France.
Edward foresaw that it would be easy to dissolve an alliance composed of such discordant parts. For this purpose, he sent over a lady of great sagacity and address, who belonged to the train of the duchess of Clarence, and who, under color of attending her mistress, was empowered to negotiate with the duke, and to renew the connections of that prince with his own family.[*] She represented to Clarence, that he had unwarily, to his own ruin, become the instrument of Warwick’s vengeance, and had thrown himself entirely in the power of his most inveterate enemies; that the mortal injuries which the one royal family had suffered from the other, were now past all forgiveness, and no imaginary union of interests could ever suffice to obliterate them; that even if the leaders were willing to forget past offences, the animosity of their adherents would prevent a sincere coalition of parties, and would, in spite of all temporary and verbal agreements, preserve an eternal opposition of measures between them; and that a prince who deserted his own kindred, and joined the murderers of his father, left himself single, without friends, without protection, and would not, when misfortunes inevitably fell upon him, be so much as entitled to any pity or regard from the rest of mankind.
* Comines, liv. iii. chap. 5. Hall, fol. 20*7. Holingshed,
p. 676.
Clarence was only one and twenty years of age, and seems to have possessed but a slender capacity; yet could he easily see the force of these reasons; and, upon the promise of forgiveness from his brother, he secretly engaged, on a favorable opportunity, to desert the earl of Warwick, and abandon the Lancastrian party.
During this negotiation, Warwick was secretly carrying on a correspondence of the same nature with his brother, the marquis of Montague, who was entirely trusted by Edward; and like motives produced a like resolution in that nobleman. The marquis, also, that he might render the projected blow the more deadly and incurable, resolved, on his side, to watch a favorable opportunity for committing his perfidy, and still to maintain the appearance of being a zealous adherent to the house of York.
After these mutual snares were thus carefully laid, the decision of the quarrel advanced apace. Lewis prepared a fleet to escort the earl of Warwick, and granted him a supply of men and money.[*] The duke of Burgundy, on the other hand, enraged at that nobleman for his seizure of the Flemish vessels before Calais, and anxious to support the reigning family in England, with whom his own interests were now connected, fitted out a larger fleet, with which he guarded the Channel: and he incessantly warned his brother-in-law of the imminent perils to which he was exposed. But Edward, though always brave and often active, had little foresight or penetration. He was not sensible of his danger; he made no suitable preparations against the earl of Warwick;[**] he even said that the duke might spare himself the trouble of guarding the seas, and that he wished for nothing more than to see Warwick set foot on English ground.[***] A vain confidence in his own prowess, joined to the immoderate love of pleasure, had made him incapable of all sound reason and reflection.
The event soon happened, of which Edward seemed so desirous. A storm dispersed the Flemish navy, and left the sea open to Warwick.[****] That nobleman seized the opportunity, and setting sail, quickly landed at Dartmouth with the duke of Clarence, the earls of Oxford and Pembroke, and a small body of troops, while the king was in the north, engaged in suppressing an insurrection which had been raised by Lord Fitz-Hugh, brother-in-law to Warwick.
* Comines, liv. iii. chap. 4. Hall, fol. 207.
** Grafton, p. 687.
*** Comines, liv. iii. chap. 5. Hall, fol. 208.
**** Comines, liv. iii. chap. 5.